Talk To Me
by OnnaMurcielago666
Summary: "If Juudaime had died, it would have been my fault!" Gokudera was breathless, his confession now a fit of tight-throated shouting, and he gasped for breath around the guilty lump in his throat. "What kind of right-hand am I to come crawling back of what I've done?""What kind of friend are you not to visit him in the hospital?" Yamamoto challenged. (T for nonfatal character injury.)
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER ONE**

**~Katekyo Hitman Reborn! is not mine!~**

"You should talk to him," Gokudera 'tsk'ed and turned his head away, trying to burn holes into his papers with his own intense stare. He knew that eventually Yamamoto would tire of his silence and leave, but today the baseball-playing Mafioso was being much more persistent than usual. Gokudera hadn't the guts to face Tsuna, not after what had happened. "Really, Dera-kun," Gokudera prickled as the nickname slithered across his skin. "he's worried about you."

"I'm not the one to be worried about," Gokudera said suddenly, surprising himself by breaking his enforced silence. "I'm just doing-"

"Nothing." Yamamoto interrupted him sharply, his voice filled with a deeper emotion. Gokudera jerked and looked up as two hands came down and plucked his schoolwork from his grasp; he met the glare with shock but was quick to recover and return it. "You're doing nothing."

"I'm-" "Moping. And hiding from Tsuna." Yamamoto gave the volatile bomb user no chance to respond or defend himself. "You're running from him, instead of to him, and causing nothing but trouble."

Gokudera's mouth flopped for something to say and, hurrying to defend his decisions, Gokudera found his voice and said the first thing that rolled onto his tongue.

"It was my fault!" With a horrified pause, the bomber saw that his statement had pleased his counterpart in some way and he bristled defensively at the satisfaction on Yamamoto's face. "I was the one who threw my dynamite so high and I should have expected the wind to send it off course!" He admitted, seeing the scene again in his mind.

"_Piss off!" Snarled his target, scrambling over onto the equipment shed roof and above his head. He gave Gokudera a nasty hand gesture and grinned mockingly as rage swept through him. How dare he? Gokudera lit up a round of dynamite, mindful not to be seen, and threw them as high as he could, seeming to miss his target on purpose._

"_Gokudera-kun!" Tsuna's voice, from the side of the shed, filled Gokudera like a balloon. His grin stretch ludicrously wide across his face, proud to have thrown such a great hand of dynamite with his Juudaime watching, and his eyes left his target and the deadly rain of dynamite. "What's going on?"_

"If I'd paid more attention to my work, this **never** would have happened!" Gokudera painfully remembered the sight of his dynamite stick falling, as if to separate them, right in front of Tsuna's face and clinking when it hit the ground. Fresh horror swept through him as he remembered the confusion on Tsuna's face, his own inability to warn the mafia boss, and the fiery flash that blocked his precious Juudaime from sight.

"_JUUDAIME!" Gokudera's stomach dropped into his lead feet as he watched the little explosion occur, unable to do anything but scream. Others, the few students still hanging around the school grounds, saw the explosion and screamed as well without purpose. They screamed to scream while Gokudera voiced his own pain; if his dynamite had killed him, there would have been less pain. He could see Tsuna lying a few feet away, flung there by the blast, and his eyes drank in the sight of his frail little body and singed school clothes._

"If Juudaime had died, it would have been my fault!" Gokudera was breathless, his confession now a fit of tight-throated shouting, and he gasped for breath around the guilty lump in his throat. "What kind of right-hand am I to come crawling back of what I've done?"

"What kind of **friend** are you not to visit him in the hospital?" Yamamoto replied, his glare softening to a stern but consoling frown. "He was there for a week and you never even showed."

"I was-" "He's always looking for you, Dera." Yamamoto confessed, "A loud 'BANG!' gets him going more than Reborn does nowadays." Yamamoto touched the silver-haired teen's shoulder gently, expecting the gesture to be brushed away, but Gokudera didn't respond. His eyes were distant, trailing toward the window and the sunny day beyond its frame. "Dera?"

"Go home," Gokudera stood suddenly and the hand slipped off his shoulder. "I have work to do." Yamamoto sighed but, with the stubborn silver-haired teen so easy to rile up, had no other choice. If he made the bomber start yelling, he wouldn't be listening and anything Yamamoto said would be wasted.

"Alright, Dera," Yamamoto said agreeably, raising his hands up near his ears. "but don't say I didn't try to tell you… he misses you, y'know."

"Hm." Gokudera waved Yamamoto toward the door, his eyes tight and unreadable. Yamamoto didn't like the blank slates he was staring into; Gokudera himself was fire and fury and burning passion- this new quiet bomber was not welcome in Yamamoto's famiglia. The Rain Guardian tensed, giving the quiet Storm Guardian a final withering look, and left the tiny apartment.

**~Katekyo Hitman Reborn! is not mine!~**


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

**~Katekyo Hitman Reborn! is not mine!~**

The one thing Tsuna didn't expect, after the incident that is, was that he would be all by himself. He had been in the hospital and surrounded by people wishing him well or his friends, but never once alone. There was always someone there to check him or his machines or give or get him something; however, when he got home, the flood of visitors ceased. Chrome returned to the Kokuyo gang, Yamamoto was back into school and the baseball season coming up, and the girls and younger Guardian were off having more fun than ever. It warmed his heart to have this brief moment of piece for his dear friends to enjoy, but one thing ruined it.

Gokudera was nowhere to be found. He had asked Yamamoto, and Lambo, and Ryohei, but none of his Guardians had seen the silver-haired teen. The desk his closest friend usually occupied was forlornly empty and, when he asked about the absence, he was told that the Storm Guardian had validated his absences through the school. He was missing school on purpose.

Sighing for the umpteenth time, Tsuna rolled his pencil across the desk and stared blankly at the math textbook before him with the equations on the page looking more and more like hieroglyphics as he sat there. He had fallen so far behind without his favourite study partner to help him and, combined with the week of missed work, Tsuna was floundering for relief.

"Tsuna!" Suddenly, Tsuna's mother had burst into the room and he jumped in surprise. "Guess who I just saw coming down the street?"

"Um…" Tsuna shrugged cluelessly.

"Your little friend, Hayato-kun!" Nana looked so pleased with herself when Tsuna's jaw dropped. "He said he was a bit too busy to talk now but-" "Which way was he going?" Tsuna demanded, staggering to his feet and hurrying downstairs with his mother hot on his heels. She was surprised to see her son so motivated to do anything, least of chase someone down around, and grinned proudly to herself at what a fine young man he was becoming. "Mom, which way was he headed? Left? Right?"

"Left!" Nana told him happily, helping him find a pair of shoes and taking his slippers for him. "He had a few bags of groceries, so he can't have gone too far!" She quickly shooed him away from the coat rack, pushing open the front door, and shepherded her son outside. "Quick! Before he gets too far!" Tsuna glanced back at his mother once from the road –only once- and thanked her with a wide smile before he took off running as fast as he could in the direction she'd seen him walking. Nana kept waving cheerfully until her son was out of sight and whispered, "Go get him, son."

**~Katekyo Hitman Reborn! is not mine!~**

"Gokudera-kun!" Tsuna cried breathlessly, his arms and legs pumping frantically as he tried to catch up to his Storm Guardian. A glimpse of him entering a crowd had been enough to fill Tsuna with determination and, had the crowd not been there, Tsuna would have lit his Dying Will flames to increase his speed. He struggled to get through the crowd and, fearing to lose the Guardian in the crowd, he cried out for him breathlessly at the top of his little lungs. "Gokudera-kun! Wait!"

Suddenly, Tsuna broke free of the crowd and saw the silver-haired teen sauntering away slowly, two grocery bags on each arm, and leaving a trail of smoke in his wake. He forgot to scream, picking himself up off the ground, and broke into another run as his Storm Guardian continued to retreat. As he got closer, he saw the bomber's walk slow –he likely heard Tsuna's pounding footsteps- and his heart swelled as his Guardian turned to face him with an unpleasant scowl plastered across his face.

The delinquent expression melted away into shock as their eyes locked and, unable to stop himself, Tsuna ploughed into the taller teen and clung to the front of his shirt. He felt Gokudera shift expertly, saving both them and his groceries, and pressed his face into the older teen's flat chest as he tried to get his breath back.

"J-Juudaime?" Gokudera spluttered, staring down at him in disbelief. When Tsuna looked up, Gokudera's verdant green eyes were wider than dinner plates, and fixed on his heavily flushed face. Tsuna tried to speak, earning only a few gasped syllables, and frantically held up a hand in plea for time to recover from his sprint.

"I was… calling you." Tsuna managed, pointing back down the road. "My mom… she said-"

"Juudaime, I" –Gokudera stepped back into his own personal bubble, Tsuna's hand still fisted in his shirt, and looked away.- "have to go." He stepped back again, far enough now that Tsuna relinquished his hold on the shirt and let his hand fall uselessly to his side. "I-. I'm sorry." The silver-haired bomber turned back around and picked up his previous pace, hunching his shoulders against something Tsuna couldn't see through the sudden film of tears.

What had happened to his best friend? Had Tsuna done something wrong? Blinking back tears, Tsuna fisted his hands at his sides and took a deep breath. "YOU COULD AT LEAST TALK TO ME AFTER WHAT HAPPENED!" The accusation and hurt in his vice rang clear, driving a guilty spike through Gokudera's heart from behind, and the bomber turned back around to see his leader on the verge of tears. "WHAT DID I **DO**?" Before Tsuna could blink, Gokudera was on his knees before him, clutching his hands and insisting Tsuna hadn't done anything wrong. His grocery bags were in a heap back where he'd stopped but he hadn't looked at Tsuna since the first time. "Gokudera," Tsuna managed, "why won't you look at me? Did I do something wrong? If I did, I'm sorr-"

"It's not you!" Gokudera snapped harshly, hunching his shoulder as Tsuna watched and pressing his forehead to the backs of Tsuna's pale hands."It's my fault, Juudaime! I was so careless, ad you got hurt, and I" –Gokudera lifted his eyes to meet Tsuna's finally, self-loathing and guilt swirling in the green pools, and squared his jaw. "I thought you were going to die."

"But they announced-" "I know." Gokudera glanced away, nearly dropping his gaze, but Tsuna caught it again before he could. "But I-I felt-. If you had died, your blood would have been on my hands, Juudaime. I didn't take it for you, I didn't help you; hell, I couldn't warn you. What kind of right-hand am I?"

"You're **my** right-hand." Tsuna said quietly, staring down at his Guardian sadly. "Being any other kind doesn't matter." Gokudera's eyes widened as Tsuna's gaze probed deeply and soothed the ache in his heart. "I shouldn't have distracted you while you were doing what you were doing. If anything, it's my fault, Gokudera-kun."

"But it-" "I'm sorry, Gokudera-kun, for making you hurt so long." Tsuna said quietly, bobbing his head apologetically. "I should have come to see you sooner."

In his mind, Gokudera was reeling; Tsuna had voiced everything he had wanted to say, searching deep into his soul with his innocently contrite caramel eyes, and spread a balm over the raw pain of the incident. Instantly, his conscience retreated and took the nagging, blaming voice with it. He felt lighter, happier, and with no words to express himself, he threw his arms around the boy's torso tightly. He realized the taboo instantly, fearing he had aggravated an injury or insulted his leader, but the spiky-haired teen returned the gesture and buried his face in his silver hair. Gokudera felt the small hands cradle his head, fingers tangling in a few of the wayward locks by his ear, and flushed.

"It's good to have you back, Gokudera-kun." Tsuna murmured, toying with the silver strands lightly. "It got lonely without you around…"

Gokudera choked mentally at the soft confession and tightened his arms slightly, vowing to himself that he would never let Tsuna get lonely ever, ever again. It was the least he could do for his compassion, besides talk to him –which he would do every chance he got-, after what happened.

**~Katekyo Hitman Reborn! is not mine!~**

**Oh wow. I was watching **_**Grease**_** to do research for Homestuck (I know, weird right?) and all of a sudden this idea drilled through all my priorities and demanded to be written down. Essays? Forget 'em. Summatives? No way. Exams? No how. This thing needed to be done, ASAFP. Well, enjoy. I don't usually do this fandom (I more like to read it), but I couldn't resist. Tell me what you think on a scale, ladies and gents, ten being "Kufufufufu~" and one being "I'll bite you to death".**


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